About the site: This blog started as a place to house poems, favorites and original poems. Towards the end of ModPo 1, I added a blogroll of blogs showcasing poetic works by ModPo students and friends. Now, at the end of ModPo 2, we continue this tradition. We hope it provides a useful place for repose, reflection and reading. Hope you enjoy your visit here and look forward to seeing you again. New poems, links and blogs are constantly being added and updated.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Euclid Alone

It has been a while since I have listed poems other than my own on this blog. Forgive me. A ModPo'er sent me this Edna St. Vincent Millay sonnet when she learned I was preparing a geometry lesson plan. It blew me away. Thanks, Laura!

Euclid Alone

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.
Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,
And lay them prone upon the earth and cease
To ponder on themselves, the while they stare
At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere
In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese
Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
From dusty bondage into luminous air.
O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,
When first the shaft into his vision shone
Of light anatomized! Euclid alone
Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they
Who, though once only and then but far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.